Green tax from October

A green tax will be introduced by the government from October. The new tax on oil, coal, natural gas and other fossil fuels is meant to reduce emissions of the carbon dioxide blamed for global warming. This will be an additional tax on the existing oil and coal tax, and it will be hiked further in April 2014 and April 2016. The additional revenues will be used to promote renewable energies and to support power-saving initiatives by businesses and households. On an avarage the rise in the cost will be around ¥14yen and ¥10 per household for electricity and gas respectively.